Suburban Renewal (That Business Between Us Book 3)

by Pamela Morsi

"Everything you know," I answered.

  "Floyd came home drunk and got mad that she'd fixed pasta. He beat her up really bad. He had her down on the floor banging her head against the bottom of the refrigerator when Cherry Dale's kids pulled him off."

  Her words actually made me queasy.

  "After he got control of himself, he told Cherry Dale to fix him something to eat. She heated up a can of chili. He ate it and lay down on the couch to watch TV. Cherry Dale didn't disturb him until morning. When she realized he was not breathing, she called old Dr. Billups."

  "She called Billups?" I was surprised. "Why would Cherry Dale call that old quack instead of the EMS?"

  Corrie shrugged. "I guess she thought he was closer, or maybe she just wasn't thinking.''

  "Dr. Billups said that Floyd just fell asleep and never woke up. He had a heart attack and died right there on the couch."

  By the time we got to the double-wide, Cherry Dale was behaving very calmly, but she did look like hell.

  One eye was completely swollen shut, her mouth was at a strange angle, and the lower part of her face so black and blue I worried that something might be broken.

  "Did you have Dr. Billups look at your jaw?" I asked her.

  "Billups? No, I never use him. I went to my usual doctor in Tulsa. He's patched me up several times," she said. "I've got a black veil I can wear to the funeral. Nobody will know."

  It was a weird thing for her to say. And, of course, anything that happened in Lumkee everybody already knew.

  I didn't remind Cherry Dale of that fact. I just sat there, wishing that I could think of something to say. She had always been so cheerful and funny when she was visiting with Mike. Now she was as ill at ease as I was.

  "This kind of thing happens a lot," she said finally.

  I was momentarily startled. Of course, I knew that. You couldn't read the paper or watch the TV without being familiar with domestic violence.

  "It's mostly middle-aged guys," she said. "But Floyd wasn't much older than that."

  "Middle-aged guys?" I repeated, uncertain.

  "Yes, they talk about it in the exercise magazines all the time," she said. "Middle-aged guys often overexert themselves, but they don't have the heart attack during the exertion. It's afterward, when they rest."

  When I realized how wrong-tracked I was, I had to stifle the impulse to chuckle. My father was dead. His girlfriend was beaten to a pulp. There was nothing about it that was remotely funny. It was a serious moment and I had something very serious that I had to say.

  "I'm sorry that my dad beat you like he did," I said. "It was wrong of him to do that. I'm sorry he did it. And I'm sorry I didn't do anything to stop it."

  I could see the tension in Cherry Dale's shoulders relax.

  "Thank you, Sam," she said. "You couldn't have stopped him."

  "I could have got him thrown back into jail," I said.

  "Not for long," she answered. "And that wouldn't be a thing that I'd want you to have on your conscience. He was your flesh and blood, no matter what. I don't blame you. Believe me, I don't blame anyone but myself."

  We didn't have much of a funeral service. Although I was the official next of kin, Cherry Dale suggested a cremation. It seemed all right to me. It was quick and inexpensive. Floyd never had any interest in churches, so we had a little private memorial for him at Cherry Dale's house. Not many people showed up. There were a half dozen of his buddies from the bar, the assistant principal from the middle school where he worked, Corrie's parents, Corrie and the kids, Cherry Dale and me. Though I was told that his other children, my half-sisters, had been informed of his death, neither of them made an appearance. Even Cherry Dale's own kids spent the afternoon elsewhere.

  Mr. Howell, the assistant principal, agreed to say a few words. Steering clear of any mention of Floyd's personal life, he made it sound more like an annual employee evaluation than a eulogy.

  Every soul in attendance was dry-eyed except Nate.

  He cried for his paw-paw as if his little heart was broken.

  The ladies auxiliary from Gram's church, where my family still attended on an irregular basis, catered the dinner with a big ham, potatoes, greens, fresh bread and warm berry cobbler. It was a better send-off than the man deserved.

  After everyone had gone, Corrie sent Cherry Dale to bed with some pain medication. She was still far from healed. I sent the kids home with Doc and Edna and stayed to help Corrie. I wanted to be near her, to hold her. In some strange way, I needed to be comforted.

  Corrie was quiet and distant.

  "I'd really rather do this myself," she said.

  I was hurt, but I shrugged off her mood as a result of the funeral atmosphere, coupled with Cherry Dale's beaten face.

  "I just want to do something to help," I said.

  "Why don't you go clean up that mess of garbage by the alley," she said. "Cats or dogs or something got into it and they've spread trash all over the backyard. It needs to be done before tomorrow's pickup. You know they only come once a week these days."

  "Sure," I agreed.

  If she wanted space, I could give it to her. Even if it meant picking up trash in the alley.

  I grabbed a garbage bag from the carport and walked back there. There were old smelly cans, ripped-up cereal boxes, banana peels and bathroom tissues.

  Suddenly there was a strange tug on my memory as I picked up, from the tall grass around the edge of the trash can, a wide-mouthed, plastic-topped brown medicine bottle. The familiar Maynard Drugstore label was blank except for the name Mike.

  19

  Corrie

  1993

  My graduation should have been a time of celebration. I'd worked so hard and waited so long. It had taken me six years to get a bachelor's degree, but I'd finally done it. It was a tremendous accomplishment. It should have been one of the happiest, proudest moments of my life. What it felt like was just one more event that I was expected to show up at, this one wearing a robe and mortarboard.

  Sam had gotten a job. That was great news. I admit, I'd begun to wonder if he liked not working so much that he might just hang around forever. I know it's unfair of me even to say that. He couldn't find a job, and then, thank God, he was unemployed and able to stay with Mike and take care of him. Still, after the first little glow of pride at being sole support of my family, the honor wore thin.

  Sam inherited Gram's house after Floyd's death. Or rather he didn't inherit it. We found out that we'd owned it all the time. Although Sam had signed the title transfer papers, Floyd had never gotten around to filing them. We don't know if he was balking at the title transfer fee or if he just didn't want those pesky tax bills coming in his name.

  Either way, we were able to take possession of the house and set up a payment schedule to catch up the taxes on the place. It had been so long since we'd had a place of our own that we'd weeded our possessions down to the essentials. Only the children's rooms were significant moving challenges.

  Gram's house was small. Since Lauren and Nate both needed their own rooms, I decided that Gram's sewing porch, a little multi-windowed room that had been added to the east side of the house, would serve as our master bedroom. It was small, but with Sam living his life in some distant motel, it was plenty big enough for me.

  Lauren was gearing up to start high school in the fall. She was more able to take care of herself and help around the house. She loved being at Gram's place. The neighborhood was in the middle of a revitalization. Lots of the new people, moving into the area for Tulsa's high-tech jobs, liked the big trees, sidewalks and picket fences that evoked memories of small-town America. Though it was all just window dressing. The city sprawl now spread far past Lumkee. The new high school had an enrollment close to 1,500, almost three times the size it had been when Sam and I attended.

  Lauren was popular and had lots of friends. She also participated in nearly everything, which brought its own share of conflicts. She loved ballet, but worried her horseback riding was maki
ng her look too muscular. She had been first-chair flute in the middle school. But if she was in the marching band, she couldn't go out for cheerleader. She was elected president of Salon France, but bemoaned that all the athletes and the really cool kids signed up for Spanish Club.

  Nate's problems were different. He had few friends.

  He spent most of his time in his room. While I was thrilled that he enjoyed computers and bragged that my "geeky son was destined to be the next Bill Gates," I also worried. Since his paw-paw's death, Nate had become increasingly more isolated. I was aware of several occasions when he'd stayed on the Internet all night. He was also quite capable of cutting classes, or even the entire school day, to sit in front of his screen. I didn't know if he was hacking into the defense department, viewing porno or just chatting with lonely kids like himself. Just not knowing was disturbing enough. And I was not likely to find out.

  The anti-woman, especially anti-Mom, seeds that Floyd Braydon had nurtured in my little son had come into full bloom. Nate was way too smart to openly defy me, blatantly disobey me, to talk back to me or to show me disrespect. He knew just where those lines were and he kept to them with great care. But he didn't like me. He didn't want to see me. He didn't want me in his room. And he had nothing whatsoever to say to me.

  "I think he should see Dr. Muldrew," I told Sam one evening on the phone.

  "What does Nate say about that?" he asked.

  "He says he's not interested," I admitted. "But that doesn't mean that we just sit on our hands."

  Ultimately, we decided that if Nate was unwilling to go, the sessions, which weren't covered by insurance and which we really couldn't afford, wouldn't do him much good.

  Sam decided that as soon as school was out, he'd take Nate with him to California. Not yet fourteen, there was no way that he could be out at the job sites. But Sam was going to look into some summer day programs for teens in Bakersfield.

  So, on the day of my graduation, I could look at my life and say that it was busy, full, complicated.

  It was also messed up. I'd messed it up. I'd fallen for another man.

  I never meant for that to happen. Never thought it could happen or would happen. I don't even know how it happened.

  I guess it really started even before Sam left for California. That's when I met him. That's when we struck up a friendship.

  I was sitting at a table in the library, surrounded by books and papers. I took notes in class on my laptop, but there were always little pieces of paper where I'd jotted down things from books and I liked to enter those into the computer so that I could organize everything together.

  I smelled him before I saw him. A faint whiff of woodsy aftershave caught my attention. My fellow students weren't all that keen on shaving. I glanced up and he was looking at me. He was tall and slim, with nice features, reddish-brown hair and wonderful blue eyes.

  "Hi," I said immediately. I grew up in Lumkee, where there was no such thing as strangers, just people you hadn't met.

  "Hello," he answered. "Are you putting together your final exam?"

  The question momentarily puzzled me. "I'm studying," I replied, uncertain. "Oh, you think I'm a professor." I could see immediately that I was right and I laughed. "No, no, I'm old enough, but I'm still a student."

  He smiled. It was a wonderful smile. And then he sat down across the table from me.

  "Well, aren't we always saying that learning is lifelong," he pointed out. "That must mean that I'm a student, too."

  "Good save," I told him.

  "I do my best." He offered his hand across the top of the table. "Hollace Rivers Harrington, my friends call me Riv, but I always use the whole name when I introduce myself, so people will recognize it when they see it on a book jacket."

  "Book jacket? Are you a writer?"

  "I'm a novelist," he answered. "An unpublished novelist with a time-consuming and humdrum second job as an English professor."

  I laughed. 'Time-consuming and humdrum? Hey, mister, I'm studying to be a teacher."

  "Oh, I like being a teacher," he hastened to clarify. "I'm just not that enamored with actually teaching."

  He was fun and flirty and I enjoyed his company. It couldn't be a bad thing to make a new friend. Just because he was a man didn't mean he wasn't friend material. The whole thing was completely acceptable and aboveboard. We both revealed up front that we were married. We each had children. I cannot stress to you enough how totally innocent it all was.

  Except maybe it wasn't. I never mentioned Riv to Sam. Occasionally one of us would suggest that we get together as couples some time, but neither of us ever followed up on it. We started meeting for lunch a couple of times a week. Then we were seeing each other every day.

  Once we were discussing films and he mentioned one he'd just seen, The Scent of Green Papaya. I admitted that I'd never seen a Vietnamese film, in fact I'd never seen any film with subtitles.

  Riv invited me to see it with him. I had a great time, watching the movie and talking about it afterward with him. After that Riv and I started going out to the movies together regularly.

  Sam was far away in California. I was not. Riv and I never talked about being together as if we were sneaking around. We never discussed what our families might have thought that we were doing. We just met each other at the front of the theater. We each bought our own ticket. It wasn't dating. We were just enjoying a movie together, enjoying time together, enjoying popcorn together.

  He was smart, interesting, educated. He'd grown up in Connecticut, a place so far away and exotic to me it might as well have been Djakarta or Khartoum. He'd gone to prestigious schools back East. He'd spent two summers living in Europe. He'd backpacked through Nepal. He'd been on every continent except Antarctica and he'd even seen it from a ship. I was fascinated by his stories, flattered by his attention.

  He was so different from Sam, in every way. He'd been places, done things. The most exciting thing my husband had ever done was learn how to cook tamales.

  I began thinking about Riv in every spare moment. He was the first thing on my mind when I got up in the morning. He was the last thing on my mind when I went to bed at night.

  Lauren would be sharing her latest drama and talking to me, but I was thinking about him.

  On the weekends that Sam was home I was annoyed that I was forced to stay in Lumkee and have family time.

  I avoided my mom, my friends. I didn't have time for them anymore.

  I wanted to be with Riv. And I began to resent everything and everyone that stood in my way.

  So when I walked across the stage to get my diploma on that beautiful spring afternoon, I was less than happy. My husband was there. My children were there. My parents were there. And they were all cheering and applauding me. All I could do was wonder whether Riv was there. Was he in the audience somewhere watching me? I wanted him to be there.

  After commencement, my parents took the whole family out to a lovely dinner at The Fountains. Mom was in her element, sweetly scolding the waiter to get us a better table. Lauren followed her lead with such a pretty and pleasant facade of condescension. Nate was bored and sullen. My dad was quiet, as he was most often was since Mike's death.

  Sam stood and offered a toast on my behalf.

  'To the smartest woman I've ever known," he said. "Now she has the paper to prove it."

  Everybody laughed.

  He grew more serious. "I think everyone at this table knows, or should know, that this family wouldn't have survived the last few years without you, Corrie. You have worked, sometimes at two jobs, making sure that our bills were paid. And you've done it generously, selflessly and without a word of complaint." He grinned wryly. "Oh, we had the occasional whine, but no actual complaints." More laughter. "Through all of these terrible times in our family, through all the emotional stress and financial struggle, you never lost sight of your goals. I'm not sure if I can express how proud I am of you. But just let me say that if our children and their childre
n and grandchildren grow to have half the strength and heart of Corrie Braydon, the world will be a better place."

  Sam's eyes were filled with tears. I was also swept with emotion. Mine was mostly shame.

  The following Tuesday I drove into the city to meet Riv for lunch at the Interurban. He seemed so thrilled to see me. As if we'd been apart for a month instead of three days. The blood was pounding through my own veins.

  The place was really too busy and noisy for the discussion that we had to have, but I steeled my determination.

  "I don't think we should see each other anymore," I told him as soon as I was seated.

  There was a moment of complete silence between us. He was looking at me closely as if trying to decipher my plainspoken words. Finally, weaving his fingers together and resting them on the edge of the table in front of him, he nodded to me thoughtfully.

  "You don't need to threaten me, Corrie. I realize that it's time for us to move to the next level," he said. "I've felt it myself. We're more than friends. Relationships are either growing or they're dying. I believe I'm ready to let us grow."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm ready to expand our relationship to include physical intimacy," he said. "And I can't tell you how much it means to me that you've chosen to explore this with a rational and interactive discussion. So many women just want to be caught up in the moment and be swept away by passion. I realize that this alleviates for them any sense of their personal responsibility in their own decision-making. But we are adults here, I think we're capable of being honest with each other."

  He paused only to take a studied breath. “I've been wanting to have sex with you," he continued. "I've even been working on the logistics of it. I have a friend in the math department, he keeps a little place off campus for this sort of thing. I'm sure he'll allow us to use it a couple of afternoons a week."

  "Riv, I don't think—"

  He cut me off with an upraised hand. "Please don't get anxious about any of this," he said. "You're a very attractive woman. I'm certain that we'll be as compatible together in bed as we are in conversation. I mean intercourse is intercourse, that's what I always say."